This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Applications No. 2000-163042, filed May 31, 2000; and No. 2000-163043, filed May 31, 2000, the entire contents of both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic commerce method and system for semiconductor products in case of conducting electronic commerce for semiconductor products via a network and a production system, a production method, a production equipment design system, a production equipment design method, and a production equipment manufacturing method for effective operations in a factory.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a typical semiconductor factory monthly produces general-purpose products such as memory chips on the basis of several thousand lots. A production line includes too may lots and requires a long period of production. Because of this, it has been difficult to estimate the completion of the product after it went into production. Even in this situation, general-purpose products need not be especially considered regarding input of a lot in accordance with the delivery time, causing no serious problems. Generally, one lot can take in about 25 to 50 wafers. Of course, the lot can take in about 1 to 50 or 100 wafers.
On the other hand, a semiconductor factory in a SOC (System On Chip) age is considered to chiefly produce system LSI chips on a scale of several hundred lots as a monthly production in accordance with customer requests. Such a small-scale factor (hereafter referred to as the mini-fab) needs to input a necessary amount of lots and follow the delivery time by conducting a proper lot progress management. Further, it is necessary to determine whether it is possible to actually manufacture the product in accordance with customer requests such as specification, quantity, delivery time, price, and the like.
However, it has been difficult for conventional mini-fabs to strictly control the lot progress management and to correctly estimate whether the product can be manufactured by following the delivery time. In semiconductor products such as LSI chips, it is considered to drastically increase business opportunities by constructing an electronic commerce using networks such as the Internet. However, since it is difficult to conduct the lot progress management and estimate the product manufacturing, it has been very difficult to implement an electronic commerce for these semiconductor products.
Hence, it has been difficult for conventional semiconductor factories to estimate whether it is possible to conduct the lot progress management and manufacture the product. This has been a cause of losing business opportunities for mini-fabs in a SOC age.
Generally, conventional typical semiconductor factories use as many as dozens of apparatuses for the same purpose at various processes. The same type of apparatuses process many lots, making it difficult to control a flow of lots. As a system for controlling a flow of lots, there is provided the software called xe2x80x9cManSimxe2x80x9d from TYECIN Systems, Inc. Input information includes apparatuses used for each process of a product, processing times, apparatus groups, and the like. Lots are allowed to flow on a computer virtually. The system aims at controlling a flow of lots, optimizing production lines, and conducting production scheduling.
To optimize production lines and conduct production scheduling, it is necessary to transfer various information such as lot progress information on an actual production line, information about apparatus states, product""s process information, and the like to a computer system. A progress estimate is computed through the use of these types of information as input data. The resulting information needs to be transferred to the actual production line as a work instruction. However, on a large-scale production system characterized by a monthly production of several thousand lots, the progress estimate is computed by simplifying various processes due to restrictions on computer throughput. Accordingly, such a system does not necessarily conduct accurate simulation.
A similar method is proposed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 10-207506. The manufacturing management system proposed therein exchanges trial production system information via shared information and uses a result of the simulation to manage a manufacturing process for the production or trial production. According to this technique, a computer system chiefly contains a device simulation function, a process simulation function, circuit, shape, logic simulations functions, and the like, but not a simulation function for flowing lots. This has been the problem of not estimating a lot flow.
FIG. 1 exemplifies a result of computing a throughput and a work period by using ManSim. In this figure, the abscissa axis shows the number of lots (work in process: WIP) within a production line. The ordinate axis shows the throughput (monthly quantity of output) and the work period. Solid lines indicates results of computing a throughput and a work period, and a dotted line indicates actual result of a throughput for reference. According to this figure, when the WIP is small, the throughput is proportional to the WIP and the work period remains constant. This state causes little wait conditions in a lot. When the WIP increases, the throughput gradient decreases gradually, and finally becomes a constant value. It is known that this throughput corresponds to the throughput of a bottlenecked apparatus. Within this region, the work period increases in proportion to the WIP.
Increasing productivity of the production line requires increasing the throughput and shortening the work period. Shortening the work period needs to decrease the number of waiting lots. In this figure, the WIP needs to be set approximately to value A. However, this is not practical because the throughput is too small. By contrast, increasing the WIP approximate to value C in the figure maximizes the throughput, but lengthens the work period. Accordingly, it is considered to be appropriate for operations to use values approximate to B in the figure.
As indicated with a broken line in FIG. 1, however, the throughput and productivity decreases due to maintenance or failures of apparatuses, inconsistent arrival of products to a bottlenecked apparatus, and the like. To prevent the throughput from decreasing, it is necessary to accurately predict the progress of lots and conduct optimal processing for increasing the throughput and shortening the work period. As mentioned above, however, a large-scale production system must simplify various processes for computation due to restrictions on computer throughput. It has been difficult to accurately estimate the progress of lots.
Besides, several choices may occur when a certain apparatus processes lots. For example, it is assumed that there is provided a batch apparatus which can process a plurality of lots at a time. When a given lot waits for processing, it is necessary to determine whether to process that lot immediately or to wait until another lot arrives. On a given apparatus, a lot with a low priority waits and a lot with a high priority is expected to occur after a specified time. In this case, it is necessary to determine whether to process the low-priority lot first or to process the high-priority lot first by suspending the low-priority lot. In addition, when there is provided a continuous process such as pre-treatment, oxidation (or CVD), and then post-treatment within 24 hours, it is necessary to determine at which timing the processing should start.
There may be a variety of methods for selecting an optimal one from a plurality of choices as mentioned above depending on situations. Above-mentioned ManSim uniquely determines a rule for selecting choices and computes a lot progress under the corresponding condition. When the above-mentioned choices occur, ManSim is incapable of such computation, also offering a serious problem to be solved.
As described above, various processes need to be simulated in actual production line for optimizing semiconductor production line and scheduling the production. The actual situation is that various processes are simplified for computation due to restrictions on the computer throughput. Accurate simulation has been difficult. For this reason, it has been difficult to accurately estimate a lot progress. A method of selecting optimal one from a plurality of choices depends on situations. A prior art makes it difficult to select an optimal choice.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic commerce method and a system thereof capable of lot progress management and correctly determining possibilities of product manufacturing thereby expanding business opportunities.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a production system, production method, production equipment design system, production equipment design method, and production equipment manufacturing method capable of accurately simulating various processes in an actual production line and implementing effective operations especially in a relatively small-scale factory.
For the above-mentioned problems, one embodiment of the present invention provides the following configurations.
Namely, one embodiment of the present invention provides an electronic commerce method for an agent manufacturing or selling semiconductor products and a purchaser purchasing semiconductor products to conduct an electronic commerce, the method comprising the steps of: connecting a client terminal used by a purchaser or his or her proxy to a virtual production line so constructed as to simulate production processes in a real production line for manufacturing semiconductor products on a computer; receiving a purchaser-requested condition for a purchaser-requested product from the client terminal; simulating realtime whether the purchaser-requested product flows on a virtual production line according to a purchaser-requested condition; and determining whether a product is manufactured according to a purchaser-requested condition.
Besides, another embodiment of the present invention provides an electronic commerce method for an agent manufacturing or selling semiconductor products and a purchaser purchasing semiconductor products, to conduct an electronic commerce by using a network, the method comprising the steps of: connecting via network a client terminal used by a purchaser or his or her proxy to a virtual production line so constructed as to simulate production processes in a real production line for manufacturing semiconductor products on a computer; inputting a purchaser-requested product and conditions from the client terminal and transferring this input information to the virtual production line; simulating realtime whether a product flows on the virtual production line according to a purchaser-requested condition based on the product and conditions input to the virtual production line; transferring a simulation result in the virtual production line to the client terminal; determining whether to effectuate a business transaction from the client terminal in response to a result of the simulation; and issuing an instruction for manufacturing semiconductor products from the virtual production line to the real production line.
Still another embodiment of the present invention provides an electronic commerce method concerning semiconductor products for a purchaser purchasing semiconductor products to have electronic commerce with an agent manufacturing or selling semiconductor products by using a network, the method comprising the steps of: connecting via network a client terminal used by a purchaser or his or her proxy to a virtual production line so constructed as to simulate production processes in a real production line for manufacturing semiconductor products on a computer; inputting a product to be purchased and conditions thereof from the client terminal; receiving a result of simulating realtime at the client terminal whether a product flows on the virtual production line according to a purchaser-requested condition based on the input product and conditions; and responding whether to purchase a semiconductor product from the client terminal in response to the received simulation result.
Still yet another embodiment of the present invention provides an electronic commerce method concerning semiconductor products for an agent manufacturing or selling semiconductor products to have electronic commerce with a purchaser purchasing semiconductor products by using a network, the method comprising the steps of: connecting via network a client terminal used by a purchaser or his or her proxy to a virtual production line so constructed as to simulate production processes in a real production line for manufacturing semiconductor products on a computer; receiving a product and conditions at the virtual production line input from the client terminal; simulating realtime whether a product flows on the virtual production line according to a purchaser-requested condition based on the product and conditions transferred to the virtual production line; transferring a result of the simulation to the client terminal; determining whether a transaction is effectuated according to a response from the client terminal based on the simulation result; and issuing an instruction for semiconductor product manufacturing from the virtual production line to the real production line when a transaction is effectuated according to the determination.
Yet still another embodiment of the present invention provides an electronic commerce system, comprising: a virtual production line so constructed as to simulate production processes in a real production line for actually manufacturing semiconductor products on a computer; and a connection server for connecting the virtual production line to a client terminal via a network, wherein: the connection server transfers conditions input from the client terminal to the virtual production line and transfers to the client terminal a result of realtime simulation whether a product flows on the virtual production line according to a transferred condition.
Still yet another embodiment of the present invention provides an electronic commerce system, comprising: a virtual production line providing a computer with substantially the same functions as for a real production line actually manufacturing products; first transferring means configured to transfer various information about the real production line to the virtual production line; computing means configured to compute an optimal lot progress on the virtual production line based on the transferred information; second transferring means configured to transfer work instruction data based on a result of the computation to the real production line; and a connection server configured to connect the virtual production line to a client terminal via a network, wherein: conditions input from the client terminal are transferred to the virtual production line via the connection server transfers; realtime simulation is performed to determine whether a product flows on a virtual production line under transferred conditions; a simulation result is transferred to the client terminal via the connection server; and a transaction is effectuated based on a simulation result.
In the above embodiments of the present invention, a user such as a sales representative or a customer connects to a virtual production line via network. The user inputs a specified LSI product name, specification, delivery time, price, and the like and simulates whether such a product can be manufactured on the virtual production line. When a result from the simulation shows that the product can be manufactured, a transaction is initiated and a work instruction is issued to an actual production line. Even when a result from the simulation shows that the product cannot be manufactured, the user can change the semiconductor product""s specification, quantity, delivery time, price, and the like. When an acceptable solution is obtained, a transaction is initiated and a work instruction is issued to an actual production line.
Here, the virtual production line is designed to use a computer for simulating production processes in an actual production line which manufactures semiconductor products. A simulation using the virtual production line makes it possible to correctly determine possibilities of managing a lot progress and manufacturing the product on the actual production line. Consequently, this allows mini-fabs in the SOC age to effectuate the electronic commerce for semiconductor products and enlarge business opportunities.
Yet still another embodiment of the present invention provides a production system, comprising: a virtual production line providing a computer with substantially the same functions as for a real production line actually manufacturing products; receiver configured to receive various information about the real production line by using the virtual production line; computing means configured to compute an optimal lot progress on the virtual production line based on the received information; and transferring means configured to transfer work instruction data based on a result of the computation to the real production line.
Still yet another embodiment of the present invention provides a manufacturing method of using a virtual production line provided with substantially the same functions in a computer as for a real production line actually manufacturing products, performing simulation in a virtual production line, and enabling efficient operations in a real production line, the method comprising the steps of: receiving various information about the real production line by means of the virtual production line; computing an optimal lot progress in the virtual production line based on the received information; and transferring work instruction data based on a result of the computation to the real production line.
The above described embodiment of the present invention provides a virtual factory (virtual production line) for virtually manufacturing products including trial products The virtual factory aims at effectively operating the production line in a factory, especially a relatively small-scale semiconductor factory (actual production line referred to as a mini-fab) whose monthly production is several thousand lots or less. There are provided lot progress information from an actual production line actually manufacturing products and information about apparatus situations. These pieces of information are transferred to the virtual production line. A lot progress estimate is computed using input data including these pieces of information and product process information maintained in the virtual production line. As an output, the computation result includes information about an optimal processing lot, order, and the like. The output is transferred to the actual production line as a work instruction.
During computation of the lot progress estimate using lot progress information, information about apparatus situations, and product""s process information as input data, several choices may occur when a given apparatus processes lots. For example, it is assumed that there is provided a batch apparatus which can process a plurality of lots at a time. When a given lot waits for processing, it is necessary to determine whether to process that lot immediately or to wait until another lot arrives. When another lot is expected to arrive soon, it is considered to be beneficial to await that lot. When another lot is not expected to arrive soon, it is considered to be beneficial to process the current lot only. Accordingly, an optimal processing method is considered to vary with situations. On a given apparatus, a lot with a low priority waits and a lot with a high priority is expected to occur after a specified time. In this case, it is necessary to determine whether to process the low-priority lot first or to suspend it.
The above embodiment of the present invention computes all or part of these various choices. When there is a plurality of choices, a lot progress is estimated with respect to all or partial combinations of these choices. This operation is performed during a computation time specified by the input data.
There are several to dozens of apparatuses of the same type in a large-scale semiconductor factory which monthly produces approximately fifty to sixty thousand wafers or more. The above-mentioned combinations necessitate a great amount of computations. Practically, it has been difficult to perform such computations. By contrast, at least one or up to several apparatuses of the same type are used in a semiconductor-factory which monthly produces several thousand wafers or less. There are provided apparatuses which easily cause a plurality of choices such as apparatuses for charging a plurality of lots. These apparatuses occupy one third or less of the whole. A chance of making choices is smaller than the large-scale semiconductor factory which monthly produces approximately fifty to sixty thousand wafers or more. Accordingly, the number of combinations decreases, making it possible to extend the time for lot progress computation.
More specifically, a conventional large-scale factory just computes a progress for, say, 10 minutes due to restriction of a computer. By contrast, a mini-fab according to the present invention can compute a progress for, say, a week using the same computer, ensuring a practical use. Based on this lot progress estimate, it is possible to determine an optimal processing method or sequence with reference to specially input conditions for determining an optimal processing method or sequence. This processing method is transferred to the production line as a work instruction. As a result, the lots flow efficiently, shortening the work period and improving throughput. Accordingly, this improves productivity of semiconductor wafer manufacturing.
The use of this method for manufacturing semiconductor wafers enables prioritized processing for products with high priorities and efficient processing for products with low priorities within an available range. Further, it is possible to optimize the maintenance or a sequence of lot processing when an apparatus is being maintained or is to be maintained.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.